How to grow container vegetables

Here's a safe bet: If you're growing vegetables in South Florida, you're growing them in containers of some kind.

Or at least you probably should be.

I've been growing vegetables in South Florida for years, and I've talked to dozens of gardeners —amateurs and professionals — and it almost always comes back around to what kind of system is the best. Self-watering containers or hydroponics? Grow bags or open pots?

Almost no one does it in the ground.

This doesn't exactly line up with the vision of the kitchen gardener with a floppy sun hat and dirty gloves, but it's just reality. The truth is, our soil isn't very good. It's alkaline and full of nematodes (nasty little bugs that destroy a plant's roots). And our environment itself can be challenging, with a season that begins with subtropical heat and humidity and quickly moves into distressingly cold weather.

But if growing in the ground is impractical, what options are there?

You might be surprised.

Stackable containers

Jessica Padron, president of The Urban Farmer, calls her garden her "Acropolis," and it's easy to see why. Her urban farm is a little oasis of green in industrial Pompano Beach, right off busy Powerline Road. Rows of stackable white containers rise up from the ground like columns, each spilling over with fresh vegetables.

Padron started her farm in early 2010 as an education center and produce farm. Today, she teaches classes on growing vegetables and runs a CSA -- community supported agriculture -- that provides members with farm-fresh fruit and vegetables from local farms.

Before she got started, Padron researched the best way to get the most vegetables from a small space and settled on an increasingly popular solution: Verti-Gro stackable containers.

The idea behind stackable containers is simple. The small plastic pots are mounted vertically on poles so vegetables can cascade down the column. The pots are filled with an ecologically friendly potting media made from coconut fiber and either watered by hand or with an automatic irrigation system. Vertical growing can increase yields by as much as 400 percent, which is perfect for small gardens.

"It looks more complicated than it is," Padron said. "Each system has a pump and timer, so you can just set it and watch the plants grow."

Home-based Verti-Gro systems aren't particularly expensive: a set of four towers, plus fertilizers, irrigation and potting soil costs about $350. The whole system can easily pay for itself within a year while supplying your family with fresh fruits and vegetables. A smaller, re-circulating system can be purchased for less than $200.

"I don't recommend anyone grow in the ground," Padron said. "These systems save water, there's no leaching or run-off of fertilizer, and it feeds plants exactly what they need so production is faster."

If the idea of setting up a hydroponic Acropolis in your yards feels like too much, self-watering containers are the next best thing. Even balcony gardeners likely have room for a container of fresh vegetables or herbs.

The idea behind self-watering containers is pretty simple. The container is designed with a reservoir of water beneath the growing chamber. The growing chamber is filled with regular potting soil and fertilizer before planting, then sealed with plastic to reduce water loss. When the plant is thirsty, it sucks water up from the reservoir through a wick. The gardener's job is easy: you just keep the reservoir filled up and let the container do the rest.

EarthBoxes have been the reigning champs of self-watering containers since they were introduced in the mid-1990s. The EarthBox is a small, self-contained system that has room for two large tomato plants or six heads of lettuce or broccoli. A basic EarthBox system costs $30 and lasts pretty much forever.

Since the EarthBox came out, however, a host of do-it-yourselfers have taken the basic concept to new heights — and perhaps no one has gone so far as Ray Newstead, an engineer in San Jose, California.

Like many South Floridians, Newstead wanted to grow his own vegetables, but he didn't have room for a big in-ground garden and he wanted something a little bigger than the standard EarthBox. So in a fit of experimentation over the course of one growing season, Newstead developed the EarthTainer using supplies available in almost any Home Depot or Lowe's. The total cost for supplies is about $50.

Like an EarthBox on steroids, the EarthTainer is crafted to hold a whopping 3.3 cubic feet of potting soil. The water reservoir holds eight gallons of water. According to Newstead, you can grow just about anything in the EarthTainer, from extra-large beefsteak tomatoes to full-size sweet corn.

"I looked at self-watering containers and they were all similar," he said. "My experience with growing Brandywine and other tomatoes was there's a linear relationship between how much soil you can devote to the system and the vigor and yield."

Newstead goes out of his way to make it clear he's not competing with EarthBox. He doesn't sell any finished containers and he gives the plans away for free online. He only asks that happy customers donate to the Feeding America charity.

"I used to grow in large terra cotta pots, but you've got to be able to water them all the time," he said. "I travel all over for work, and I'd come home and my plants would be dead. With this, you only have to go out and stick a hose in every week."

Jon VanZile is a South Florida garden writer. Follow his tomato blog at floridatomatoes.blogspot.com or at Sun-Sentinel.com/home.